Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.
Habib (Habibollah) Elghanian (Persian: () , 5 April 1912 9 May 1979) was a prominent Iranian Jewish businessman and philanthropist who served as the president of the Tehran Jewish Society and acted as the symbolic head of the Iranian Jewish community in the 1970s.
He was arrested and sentenced to death by an Islamic revolutionary tribunal shortly after the Iranian Revolution for charges including corruption, contacts with Israel and Zionism, and "friendship with the enemies of God", and was executed by firing squad. He was the first Jew and businessman to be executed by the Council of the Islamic Revolution.
Persian Jews or Iranian Jews (Persian: یهودیان ایرانی, yahudiān-e-Irāni; Hebrew: יהודים פרסים) are the descendants of Jews who were historically associated with the Persian Empire, whose successor state is Iran. The biblical books of Esther, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah contain references to the lives and experiences of Jews who lived in Persia. Dating back to biblical times, Iranian Jews constitute one of the world’s oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities. Jews have had a continuous presence in Iran since the time of Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus invaded Babylon and freed the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
Today, the vast majority of Persian Jews live in Israel and the United States, especially in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and on the North Shore of Long Island. There are smaller Persian Jewish communities in Baltimore, Maryland and the Twin Cities. According to the latest Iranian census, the remaining Jewish population of Iran was 9,826 in 2016; a 2021 population website numbers the Jews In Iran as 8,500 in 2021.